Boy Meets Girl
by HalfASlug
Summary: Not all love stories are as simple as boy meets girl. In fact, some love stories aren't simple at all.


_Saved this on here last time I was online so I wouldn't disappear for weeks again. There will hopefully be a Halloween fic as well. Hopefully this sort of makes up for the lack of Make This Real updates. Thanks must go to Tesco. Who knows why they need free WiFi but I'm grateful that they do._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling of that big house in Edinburgh was proud to say she owned Harry Potter and all related trademarks, thank you very much._

* * *

For them it starts the night before they say goodbye to his brother and her friend with a kiss that he claims he is too drunk to remember and she is sober enough to have stopped.

She finds him at the shop, sitting amongst the dreams that they have made real, refusing to attend the next day's service. Saying goodbye in such a way is too final and he is holding out that this is the worst joke ever played and his brother will bounce through the door any minute now.

She understands, of course she does. She sits and watches the door with him.

Soon the bottle of Firewhiskey she has brought with her and has been passing between them is nearly empty and neither of them really knows what they are laughing at anymore.

"So you and him?" he giggles, bumping his shoulder into her's. "Where… where was that?"

"Nowhere," she says with a snort. "It… it was never really… We would never have worked out."

"Fuck knows you tried."

"True," she nods, the humour leaving the situation and her cold. For all the good times there were just as many arguments and walk outs that never happened when they were only friends. "If he was anything, he was trying."

The silence isn't awkward but she feels the need to fill it as though words will somehow cover the empty space next to them.

"But he was Fred," she whispers though she fully intends to keep this in her head. "He was Fred and he was there. He was always there."

"Yeah."

She looks at him then, his jaw tense and eyes watering, and knows he is lost but doesn't know how to find him. He turns and for the first time since that terrible day she is able to meet his eye. Though she is one of the few that could tell them apart, her vision is hazy and she doesn't care what letter is on the front of the knitted jumper he is wearing.

Their lips meet as tears fall and they know neither can get through the next day without the other.

* * *

It's called a wake but he has never felt more tired. It's these occasions where they were at their best. The crowd was a challenge they would never back down from and soon enough they would win them over. The Weasley Twins. A must have for all situations in need of a sense of humour.

Now it's Charlie, Lee and Ginny swapping stories that everyone knows but laughs anyway. It's frustrating because he knows he could do better if his partner were here. Instead he half-listens and hopes they leave him alone to get pissed.

Another glance at the group gathered in the kitchen and he sees one other person not joining in. She smiles when their eyes meet and he takes another swig to douse the guilt burning inside of him. An unspoken agreement passes between them.

_It never happened and won't ever again._

* * *

Their promise to each other and to him is broken every time they are alone, which is often seeing as he needs looking after and she needs something else to think about. She's sober when it happens now, but he never is. Then again he's never sober full stop.

It's not until his little brother - who really isn't so little anymore - catches them and she leaves them to have an argument that it changes. He stops drinking. She stops escaping.

"We're going to have to talk about the other thing at some point," he says after three weeks sober and she agrees. She's never been one to back down from a challenge.

"Do you want there to be another thing?"

She waits for a joke and it doesn't come, hasn't for months. "Depends who you think I am."

It depends on so much more and she tells him that, her tone angrier than it probably should be, and she's out the door, leaving his real question unasked, unanswered but uncovered.

"Good talking to you," he calls after her.

* * *

"At least we stopped before it went too far."

"Yeah."

"I mean, couple of snogs… nothing between friends. Not really."

"Nope."

"Bound to happen-"

"Ange, I don't need convincing."

She does and they both know it but he still hasn't worked out how he fits into life on his own, let alone help anyone else find their place.

He has to start somewhere though.

"Pretty great snogs though. You're definitely in my top five."

"Top- Well, you only just scrape into my top ten."

"To be expected. How was I ever expected to beat the legendary oral prowess of Mark Crumpton."

"How many times do I have to tell you that _never happened_!"

She's hitting him and laughing while he fits the old routine so he can do it on his own. It's the first time he forgets to try and be happy and just _is_.

* * *

He wakes up alone and for a moment there's nothing wrong with this but then he remembers that this morning, for the first time in longer than he'd like to admit to anyone, that isn't how it is supposed to be. For a moment he basks in what is left of the night before, trying to convince himself that it wasn't a very realistic dream, but then he hears the shower running and he knows that it's true.

At first, he is happy – gleeful, even – that it has happened but, as always with her, the guilt and everything else that goes with it soon follows.

Heaving his emotional baggage and bad karma out of bed after him, he makes his way across the landing to the bathroom and stands outside.

"Ange?" he calls and she doesn't reply. Over the sound of running water, he can hear a different kind of water works.

"You know how shit this bathroom lock is so if you don't want me to come in then you should probably say something now."

No reply.

With a heavy sigh, he pushes the door open with ease and stares down at the woman in front of him. Still wearing his shirt from last night, curled up under the stream, she looks up at him, her beautiful face blotchy.

"At least tell me that I was better than him," he quips but for once, even he can't lighten this moment. His attempt at levity abandoned, his half-hearted smile falls to the ground and soon he joins it, next to her and lets his brave face wash down the drain with hers.

"You weren't better," she mumbles into his neck, "just…different."

And like that, he knows that this isn't over yet; he just doesn't know if he wants it to be or not.

* * *

The first time she calls him his brother's name she thinks he's going to walk out of her flat. She wouldn't blame him and part of her hopes he does. Maybe if he leaves then they will silently agree she never slipped up and it can be forgotten? At least she wouldn't have to see his face pale, eyes dulling and the shadow she had fought so hard to destroy shrouding him once more.

"I-I am _so-_"

"It was going to happen one day."

There's a fair attempt at bravado on his part that she just can't match.

"No, I- George, I don't-"

"You're not the first and you won't be the last."

"But-"

"Even after the ear lopping-off people got confused."

"George-"

"You'd think a hole in my head would be a big enough clue-"

"Stop-"

"-so it still being a head-scratcher with one of us being six feet under-"

"GEORGE!"

He stops when he sees the tears, though she knows he is only making jokes to help himself more than her. Why deal with a problem when you can laugh at it?

She pulls him close and tries to give him the reassurance he isn't asking for but needs.

"I owe Bill five galleons now."

"What?"

"He bet against me when I said the first time you did it would be while we were shagging."

"You told Bill about us?"

"Yeah?"

The rest of the afternoon is spent together and happy though she can't stop wondering what she meant by 'us' because they certainly haven't given it a name.

* * *

He learns after a couple of years of this arrangement that possibly being in love with the girl your sleeping with on and off, who happens to be your dead twin's sort-of ex, is even more complicated than it sounds.

What they have when they have it is like some of kind of gas that makes him happier than he believed possible but the moment he tries to make it solid she backs away. Throws herself into a new job. New relationship. Tells him they should spend some time apart.

He never wants to but always agrees.

It never lasts long. She always comes back and he is always waiting for her.

He says it's because once you've had a piece of him all other men inevitably seem inferior. She tells him it's because he makes the best fry up south of the Thames. He argues it's at least the Severn and she informs him that other men don't test joke shop products during sex.

Neither of them tell the truth.

* * *

"Lee-"

"He wants more, Angie. You know he does."

"I don't know anything. And don't make some shitty joke."

"I wasn't going to. Why can't you see-"

"I can see plenty, thanks, Lee."

But she can't and she knows it. She can't see an end. She can't see a reason to stop. But, worst of all, sometimes she doesn't remember the differences between the two of them and has no idea how she is meant to feel about any of it.

* * *

It is never cheating when it's with him. It doesn't matter if it's in the beginning, middle or end or a short or long term relationship. With him, even now… it's just something she does. She hasn't even felt guilty about it for years now.

Repeatedly she tells herself that she loved Chris. Or is it for John that she repeats that lie? It definitely wasn't Ricky. Either way, she loved them. He is just… something she does. A bad habit she can't kick.

Phrases like 'sabotaging her own chances of happiness' float through her mind as she makes her journey to that tiny flat above the shop after she has an argument, when she is bored or even after she's cut a bad date short by pretending to be ill, but she will always dismiss it. Like all good addicts, she maintains that she can stop anytime that she wants.

* * *

"I still don't get why you don't tell her that you love her."

"Advice there from the boy who dragged his knuckles behind the girl he fancied for years."

"Yeah, and now we're married."

"It was your choice to condemn yourself to eternal misery, so stop whinging."

"Just-"

"She's seeing someone else. It'd be rude."

"That'll last five minutes, just like the last one."

"Might not. Have you got a point here or are you just skiving off work?"

"I'm just saying that maybe if she knew how you felt then there wouldn't be another five minute bloke in the picture."

He watches his brother shrug and disappear into the stock room, in full knowledge that he will not follow his advice. If it was a matter of her knowing then this dance they do around each other would have been over long ago. It's the fact that she knows and still dances that stops him doing anything else.

* * *

Another Weasley family get together. Another invite he extends to her that she accepts and pretends not to know the significance of. Another talk with his mum about what is going on with the two of them without saying the words 'fuck' or 'buddy'.

"Did you see Ron and Harry's faces when Hermione caught them talking about her pregnancy hormones?" he chortled, throwing his beaten up dragon-skin jacket over the back of his sofa. "Ange?"

She's looking out the window and he hopes that when she turns around he doesn't see the regret that so often seems to live there. Even though they haven't slept together for a few weeks and are currently in a stage that he calls best friends without benefits, he still sees it sometimes. Every so often she goes through a stage of abstaining but they still live in each other's pockets, making it impossible to have a relationship with anyone else.

"You think you could do any better with pregnancy hormones?" she asks and he can hear the smile in voice waver slightly.

"Nah, but I'd have the good sense to keep my blast-ended skrewt comparisons to myself."

She turns around, unshed tears in her dark eyes, and he swears the world stops turning.

"George-"

"It's mine, isn't it?"

Her nod sends him pin-balling between every emotion he knows and for a solid minute he is unable to form words as his hands run over his face, through his hair and over the front of his shirt.

"_Please_ say something."

"Something."

"Don't be a twat."

"But it comes so naturally to me."

Finally he settles with arms crossed and expression serious. It seems like the sort of thing a well-adjusted adult would do.

"I've ruined everything."

"George, how can you-"

"That'll be the first non-ginger Weasley in generations," he frets, nodding at her stomach. "I'll have to dye their hair."

There's a split second in which neither of them moves and reality threatens to crash in.

"You're not dying our baby's hair!"

"Gotta be done."

"It'll look ridiculous!"

"It's tradition!"

"It's genetics!"

"Fact of life, Ange. Malfoys are scum, Lovegoods are bonkers and Weasleys are ginger."

"Good job it won't be a Weasley then."

"Of course it will be a Weasley."

"Yes, providing that Weasley is spelt and pronounced 'Johnson.'"

"Where are you getting Johnson from?"

"It's my surname, you daft git!"

"Not after we get married, it won't be."

There are many points in George Weasley's life when he reckons he may have over-stepped a mark or bent a few rules too many, but this one, where a cushion is launched at his head, is by far the scariest and he feels fully justified in locking himself in the bathroom.

* * *

"That is not how you're proposing to me!" she screams as she bangs her fist against the door as it slams shut. "Get back out here, Weasley."

"You're pronouncing 'Johnson' wrong."

"I'll pronounce you into next week if you don't come out here!"

"That makes no sense."

An hour later and she is sat on the floor, resting her back against the door. She suspects he is doing the same on his side.

"We can't get married," she tells the empty flat in front of her.

"It's a simple enough process-"

"For once, George, can you take something seriously?"

Somehow she senses his nod through the door.

"We're not even a couple."

There's a long gap after she speaks and she fully expects him to come back with some silly quip about being unable to be serious but it never comes.

"Still telling yourself that?"

She closes her eyes. There is a sorrow in his voice she knows she is responsible for and she has been pretending it doesn't exist for too long now.

"We're not."

"We practically live together. We sleep together. We don't sleep with anyone else. We enjoy each other's company. We are each other's plus ones at various functions without even having to ask. My mum likes you. That last one is very important."

The reply rests on her lips as her throat closes up and she chokes back a sob. She's known about the baby for weeks and has been scared to tell him. The man has a Peter Pan complex and visibly recoils from any reminder than he is closer to thirty than three, after all. Deep down she knew he would never abandon her or insist it was someone else's because he's too decent for that. In fact he's easily one of the best blokes she's ever known.

"What are you scared of, Ange?"

It's the soft voice he only uses around her and though there is three inches of wood between them, she swears she can feel his breath on her cheek, cooling her tears.

"I love you," she says for the first time. "And I still love him and-"

Years of hurt and confusion breach the damns she put up to keep them at bay and she can't breathe.

"He's dead, Angie. There was a funeral and everything."

"I know."

"Just checking."

"I feel guilty. It was never going to work between me and Fred but, even with all the other shit we went through, we never had any of those problems. It's like – I wonder how with Fred we tried so hard but we could never get it together, but we've tried to stay away from each other and can't keep apart."

"I never tried to stay away from you. Not for years now, at least."

Her head is in her hands, the picture of defeat, when she finally allows herself to believe they could have a future outside of making small talk as they drop their child off at each other's houses for the weekend.

"We could be something special, you know," he continues almost to himself. "Just give us a chance and we could make something almost conventional out of this."

She chuckles wetly and sniffs in a way she is sure is highly unattractive. "I wouldn't want to spoil your fun. We'll at least have to start dogging at the weekends to maintain a reasonable level of absurdity."

"So… Angelina Johnson - or Weasley depending on your pronunciation? Fancy getting hitched and raising the first non-ginger Weasley since the dawn of time in a traditional family unit together?"

"Shouldn't you have a ring? Or be in the same room as me?"

"Such tiny details. Who cares? We doing this or what?"

Not quite able to believe she is about to say this and shaking her head as she does, she find herself laughing through tears. "Go on, then."

"Excellent. Now budge out the way. I need to say a proper hello my future partner in crime and then, Miss Johnson, you'll be pleased to hear, I'm going to shag you stupid."

She bum-shuffles to the side as the door clicks open behind her and her new fiancé crawls out with an impossibly large grin on his face. He rests his head on her lap and informs her stomach that it is destined to be gorgeous (because how can it not with those genes?), that it's mummy is not to be crossed in the mornings and that it will not be allowed to play with any form of explosive until at least it's fifth birthday. He doesn't stop his lecture until she gently pulls him up by his hair and kisses him.

It may not be the most straight-forward of stories, or the most romantic, she reflects as she lies back with her head resting on the cool bathroom tiles, but it's theirs and she doubts it could have gone any other way.


End file.
